On a good night, as much as two million dollars is bet on U.S. college basketball. In New York City alone, half a million—mostly in $50 to $500 bets—changes hands. A single Chicago betting spot handles about $100,000 worth of business a night.
Thanks to the basketball boom, hundreds of bookies (threatened with the necessity of working for their living after the racing ban) have gone on doing business at their old stands in Chicago, Kansas City, Providence, Boston, Minneapolis and points south & west. The cagey Minneapolis bookies will not touch a New York or Boston game—because, they say,
"Eastern basketball stinks." Last week the nation got a deep whiff of it.
Three New York detectives were watching the home of one Harry ("The Mustache") Rosen, suspected Fagin and fence for a gang of teen-age garment thieves. They spotted two youths entering and leaving, followed them to the home of Harvey Stemmer, a second racketeer. The detectives picked up the boys, grilled them at police headquarters. The youths got panicky and spilled a lurid story: they were members of the Brooklyn College basketball team, had pocketed bribes of $1,000 (to be split with three other teammates) to throw a game with the University of Akron; they had also arranged, for an additional $2,000, to toss a later game with St. Francis' College. Racketeers Rosen and Stemmer, byproducts of the big basketball gambling market, had set their sights on a sure way to slough the bookies.
Brooklyn College expelled the foolish five. A Grand Jury started an investigation of all recent basketball games involving teams in New York's Kings County. The State Legislature moved to pass new bribery regulations.
Prophets & Pipelines. For months there have been rumors of monkey-business on college courts, but only Dr. Forrest C. ("Phog") Allen, outspoken University of Kansas coach, had said anything out loud. Last October Phog Allen roared that he knew of two cases where college players were bribed to throw games. Now that the lid had blown off in Brooklyn, everyone tried to talk at once.
¶ Athletic Director Roy ("Legs") Hawley of West Virginia University told of bookies trying to set up an information pipeline to his gym. A Cleveland operator had offered a weekly fee to one of Hawley's players if he would report the physical condition of the squad, its mental attitude, prospective changes in lineup the day before each game.
¶ Wrote Sport Columnist Grantland Rice: "It wouldn't be so bad if these Brooklyn College players were the only offenders. . . . I know of more than one college football game . . . under heavy suspicion. My informants were members of the FBI."
¶ His Honor Fiorello LaGuardia added his shrill voice: "It just happened that Brooklyn College was the school that was caught, but Brooklyn College is not the only one."
¶ Said Georgia Tech's wise Bill Alex ander (TIME, Feb. 5): "When colleges allow a promoter or any other noncollegiate operator to book their athletic teams" — as they are booked in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and Buffalo's arenas—"they are asking for trouble."